How to install Compiz Fusion on Debian Lenny

The following tutorial covers the process of installing Compiz Fusion on Debian Lenny. Compiz is the original compositing window manager. By using 3D graphics acceleration via OpenGL to render, Compiz provided intense immersing graphical effects on Gnome and KDE desktop environments. The Beryl window manager was a fork of Compiz and had shown great success. Currently, Compiz Fusion is the result of a merge between Beryl composite window manager and Compiz. It exposes the best features of both products.Installing Compiz Fusion on Debian Lenny:

Compiz requires that you have 3D hardware video acceleration. If you have not yet installed the necessary drivers for your video card, you should do so before proceeding.

Open a terminal and type sudo su

Type gedit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following line to the bottom of the sources list:deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-lenny/desktopfx/unstable/ ./
And then save the file!

Notes: Right click the fusion-icon that should appear in your Gnome Panel to make all of your adjustments.

Update 1/14/08: It appears that the Compiz "Stable" Repositories have been recently included into the official Debian Lenny Repositories. This article is left in place for those who wish to try the Unstable Repositories.